The Faculty (1998)

Being in high school can be pretty rough. Fitting in, making friends, studying, and constantly being hounded about your plans for the future when you barely even know what to do in the present can be daunting. For the kids at Herrington High School in Ohio, high school becomes a lot more complicated, thanks to an alien invasion.

School newspaper photographer Casey (Elijah Wood), queen bee Delilah (Jordana Brewster), star quarterback Stan (Shawn Hatosy), goth girl Stokely (Clea DuVall), brilliant slacker Zeke (Josh Hartnett), and new girl Marybeth (Laura Harris) have next to nothing in common but when the school’s faculty starts behaving strangely, and Casey finds a strange new species, the group is forced to stick together to survive their teachers, and the parasitic alien species quickly taking over the entire school.

The Faculty did a few things wrong, but it got so many right! Robert Rodriguez directing any horror is going to be hilarious, with believable dialogue, and the film also featured the creme de la creme of 90s teen royalty. Everyone from comedian Jon Stewart to R&B singer Usher Raymond was featured, and much of the core cast still have successful acting careers to this day. The Faculty also puts vampires, zombies, and serial killers on hold to deal with an equally terrifying fictional threat. One of the more interesting aspects of watching the film to day is seeing how young they all used to be. Though far to dependent on stereotypes (to the point of this being a crutch), The Faculty is Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Scooby-Doo. Not just funny but actually quite scary both as a concept and a movie, The Faculty manages to be one of the best teen horror films nearly 20 years since its release.